At Miss Cullen's suggestion
we three had a second game of poker, but with chips and not money. She
was an awfully reckless player, and the luck was dead in my favor, so
Madge kept borrowing my chips, till she was so deep in that we both
lost account. Finally, when we parted for the night she held out her
hand, and, in the prettiest of ways, said--
"I am so deeply in your debt, Mr. Gordon, that I don't see how I can
ever repay you."
I tried to think of something worth saying, but the words wouldn't
come, and I could only shake her hand. But, duffer as I was, the way
she had said those words, and the double meaning she had given them,
would have made me the happiest fellow alive if I could only have
forgotten the existence of Lord Ralles.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW DID THE SECRET LEAK OUT?
I made up for my three nights' lack of sleep by not waking the next
morning till after ten. When I went to 218, I found only the _chef_,
and he told me the party had gone for a ride. Since I couldn't talk to
Madge, I went to work at my desk, for I had been rather neglecting my
routine work. While I still wrote, I heard horses' hoofs and, looking
up, saw the Cullens returning. I went out on the platform to wish
them good-morning, arriving just in time to see Lord Ralles help
Miss Cullen out of her saddle; and the way he did it, and the way he
continued to hold her hand after she was down, while he said something
to her, made me grit my teeth and look the other way.
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